George Raft and Claire Trevor starred in the crime, drama, thriller, film-noir Johnny Angel. Released on October 25, 1945, it was a box office hit that well exceeded RKO’s expectations.
George plays a merchant ship captain who finds his father’s vessel adrift at sea with the entire crew missing. He learns of a plot involving stolen gold and searches New Orleans for his father’s killer.
Both George and Claire were perfectly suited to their roles and believable in all respects. In fact, this was one of George’s best performances exhibiting his emotional range as well as his capable execution of action and romantic scenes. For his fans, this film offered dancing as well as fist fighting so everyone was pleased. Against a background of fog and gloomy nights, the cinematography is excellent and well-suited to a film-noir thriller.
Time Out film guide wrote, “There are no black diamonds, but Johnny Angel glitters like one.” Amazon customers have rated it 4.5 stars out of 5.
Johnny Angel is an exciting entry in the film-noir genre and a memorable role for George. Many of his films have been lost to contemporary audiences, but you can view dozens of them from the movies section of this site. The DVD is available at Amazon and on occasion Johnny Angel can be seen on TCM.
